The University of Rochester Cancer Center is a multidisciplinary Center with broad responsibilities for clinical research, primary and consultative interdisciplinary care, and conduct of coordinated programs in cancer education, nursing and basic research. Clinical research and treatment in the Center is community based and involves a consortium of five general hospitals in Monroe County and affiliated hospitals in the Finger Lakes region. Clinical research emphasizes combined modalities and cooperative group trials and includes participation in R.T.O.G., E.C.O.G., PSYCOG, C.C.S.G., and G.O.G. An in-house clinical investigations committee translates basic research advances into clinical research. Basic research is focused in fields particularly relevant to treatment advances. The integrating research theme of the Center is the comparative study of damage and repair of macromolecules and organelles critical to cell survival (DNA, RNA, and membranes) and the influence of these on treatment. Biostatistics-Epidemiology-Registry, Experimental Pathology/Ultrastructural, Centrifugal Elutriation, and the Animal Tumor Research Facilities serve as broad, shared resources of the Center. Complementing the core research programs are cancer control and cancer education programs. The Center is, thus, not only as a community, regional, and national clinical research resource, but also a resource for basic research and for the development of education and cancer control models.